Bruce Oldfield, the British fashion designer who is more accustomed to swathing Catherine Zeta Jones in stylish gowns, has launched his latest line – McDonald’s uniforms!

They appeared in the UK outlets (all 1,200 of them) this week and hare proving very popular with staff. The new clothes, which include a black suit for male managers, a ‘mocha’ skirt and blouse with airhostess-style scarf for female managers (we’ll see how well that fares when its been dipped in a few fryers!) and a polo shirt for the burger-flippers, had to be redesigned once because, apparently, the fabric used in the first set of apparel chafed the nipples of the McWorkers!

The driving forces behind the redesign seem to be two-fold, the company is trying to reframe its image so that increasingly health-conscious and style-aware consumers and older ones, who tend to leave the McLunch behind as they enter their thirties, can see their style reflected in the golden arches – in the UK this has included ripping out the plastic seats and putting in wifi, and adding deli sandwiches, reducing the amount of waste and litter that accompanies a McDonalds meal and putting more upmarket hot beverages to its menu. But the others side of the equation is a resurgent self-confidence in the company, which thinks that the recession could serve it well as people ‘trade down’ to cheaper meal options. McDonald’s first-quarter results on Tuesday revealed rising sales, albeit not in the United States, and confirmed the group’s relatively strong position, suggesting that McRebrand, at least in the UK, may indeed be helping revitalise the sixty-four year old company.